


Closer

by Mott



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 22:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17031294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mott/pseuds/Mott
Summary: Levi had feelings for Eren. Levi left before Eren realized his own feelings for Levi. They met at a bar years later. For the prompt posted by Ererification at the Ereri Fanfic Prompt community on pillowfort.





	Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by [Ererification at the Ereri Fanfic Prompt community on pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/243253): "Eren has loved Levi for years but couldn’t bring himself to confess, scared it would ruin the friendship that had just formed between them.
> 
> It isn’t until Levi leaves that Eren realizes he should have just bitten the bullet and gone for it.
> 
> It isn’t until years later, an accidental meeting at a bar and a few drinks and Eren’s drunken rambling that they realize they felt the same about each other."
> 
> I havent slept properly and its been a while since ive written anything pls forgive me for all the grammar and spelling mistakes. im sure i will find them once i wake up with a sense of regret that i coughed out words without double checking them

Eren knew as soon as he burst through the door of the bar that it was a bad idea, even before he tripped over his own left foot. The chill hit him hard enough to knock some clarity back into his brain, but not enough for him to regain some coordination back into his limbs. So, Eren accepted his fate, threw up his arms, and readied himself for an intense few minutes with the asphalt.

At least, his floaty brain thought, the ground would be cool.

But when minutes? hours? years? had passed, and the inevitable pain that should have shot up both his arms and vibrate through his bones to the rest of his body never came, Eren realized that he had, in fact, not met the ground in the most elegant fashion of a man who downed two martinis and five beers after not drinking for a year. Rather, if the firm arm across his shoulder and the other at his back were any indication, hopefully a really hot guy who was stocky and muscular (and not at all like his ex) caught him.

“Eren!” Mikasa’s face came into view. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Eren said, wiggling a little. The arms that hold him remained firm. _Nice_. “I’m comfortable.”

He made no effort to move.

Mikasa’s worried face soured quickly into an exasperated one. She shook her head. Eren was pretty sure that she might have rolled her eyes.

“I—” Eren threw up one finger. “Am—” He threw up another one. It was crucial that Mikasa knew how serious he was about this. Finger motion was serious business. “Am……am? Yes…am!” Eren squinted. He struggled to remember what he wanted from Mikasa but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was. Just when he thought he remembered, the thought slipped away from him.

Mikasa sighed. “You’re drunk.”

She then lifted her gaze from Eren to the wonderful stranger with the amazing arms. “Thank you for helping him, I’m really—” Then she paused. Her eyes went wide.

A strange prickling sensation ghosted up Eren’s spine, tickling his neck.  

Mikasa swallowed. Her eyes seemed wet under the dim orange patio light. Eren thought about the last time he saw Mikasa like this two years ago when her brother went away, and felt his throat closing up. His chest felt at the verge of breaking open.

A whisper of a name came to Eren’s mind before he turned to face the man. “Levi.”

“Hello, Mikasa.” Levi’s arms squeezed around Eren. “Eren.”

Levi looked good. The two years oversea had been good for him. Eren couldn’t stop looking at him. Not when Levi pushed him and Mikasa into his car, grumbling about irresponsible drinking the whole time. Not when Levi dropped off Mikasa at her apartment. Not when Mikasa looked between him and Levi with that worried look on her face again.

Levi was here. He was here.

“What is it?” Levi scowled without taking his eyes off the road. “You keep staring at me.”

“You’re here,” Eren whispered.

“Excellent observation,” Levi said.

“I didn’t think—” Eren said. “I didn’t think you would come back.”

“Of course I would. My contract was only for two years.”

“No, not that,” Eren said, noting how the lines around Levi’s mouth had deepened. Eren wondered how many of Levi’s laugh he missed these past two years. He wondered how many other people caught those moments when Levi’s eyes crinkled in amusement. He hoped the answer was a lot. But at the same time he wished he was there for all of those laughs.

But Eren wasn’t. Levi went to Munich. Two years passed and someone else probably took the place that Eren didn’t know he wanted in Levi’s life until Levi was gone.

“I didn’t think you would after—” Eren swallowed. “Sorry I couldn’t—”

An uncomfortable silence filled the car. Fuck, he shouldn’t have brought that up. Why did he bring that up? What good would it do now?

“Of course I would come back,” Levi said softly. “Even if you can’t return my feelings. We were friends before I asked for something you couldn’t give. Besides,” He threw Eren a mock glare. “Not everything is about you, brat. My little sis is here. Of course I’m going to see her.”

“You sure do know how to make a guy feel special,” Eren said.

“I picked up that skill in Europe.”

“Blame Europe all you want, but I’m pretty sure you were a dick before you went.”

“Fuck off.” The red light gave Levi the opportunity to shove at Eren’s shoulder. Levi didn’t push that hard, but Eren let his face squish against the car window anyway.

“Oww. Now I know you’re jealous of my beautiful face, old man.”

“You’re not bad looking but you’re no Rutger Hauer.”

“He’s so OLD. I can’t fault you for having old man’s taste I guess.”

“Shut up, you haven’t seen him in the 70s. You wish you age as well as he does.” Levi wasn’t smiling, but Eren caught a small amused quirk of his mouth.

“Hey! I age very well. I’d have you know that I grew like five inches since you last saw me.”

Levi scoffed. “Half a centimeter at most.”

“You’re in American soil now. You need to use inch like a good American.”

“I’m not an American. I can use whatever system I want. I chose the one that makes sense.”

Eren grinned so hard his face was at the verge of splitting in two. Perhaps it was the alcohol. Perhaps because he just broke up with Jean. Perhaps it was because Eren had always felt a Levi-shaped hole in his heart these past two years. But he slipped. “I miss you so much.”

Levi didn’t say anything. Silence filled the car again, and Eren wondered if he had said too much. A sense of panic gripped him. Perhaps he wasn’t allowed to say things like that, not when he never answered Levi’s emails. Not when he shook his head when Mikasa asked him if he wanted to skype Levi with her.

Not when, the day before Levi left, when Levi confessed his feelings, Eren said that he couldn’t do it.

“Me too,” Levi whispered.

“What?”

Levi’s skin was as pale and smooth as Eren remembered. Splashes of blue and red and gold and all the city colors danced on his face as he gave Eren a sad look that squeezed all the air from Eren’s lungs.

“I miss you too.”

The back of Eren’s eyes burned. He swallowed and turned away from Levi. It was easier this way. He didn’t have to look directly at the fact that he might have made a mistake two years ago.

Eren watched Levi’s reflection on the passenger window. He could barely make out Levi’s face, not with the bustling city lights outside, so he lasted all of five minutes before he resumed his original plan of watching Levi directly. He didn’t want to miss another second of Levi, not when he lost so many of them.

Levi, thankfully, let him look and didn’t say anything.

When Levi got a bit closer to the area, Eren gave him specific direction to his apartment. It was quite the distance, but the drive was too short for Eren’s liking. Eren didn’t want to leave the car. He didn’t want to break this fragile thing between them just yet.

So, when Levi pulled into the parking space, Eren said. “Could you help me get upstairs?”

Without the hum of the car now, the silence was heavy. But Levi said, “Sure.”

It had been a while since they left the bar, so Eren was sobering up. He knew he could walk on his own, but as he opened the car door, he purposely stumbled on his feet. Levi rushed to his side in an instant, propping him up with a shoulder.

“I got you,” said Levi.

“You always do,” said Eren.

Levi chuckled. The sound warmed Eren’s chest.

Levi helped Eren up two flight of stairs without breaking a sweat. It gave Eren a chance to press his body against Levi’s side like he had always wanted to do. Levi didn’t smell like he used to, probably because he didn’t use the same peppermint shampoo that he used before Europe. But it was still a sharp, clean scent. Eren missed the hint of peppermint, but Levi was here, and maybe it didn’t matter that Eren fucked up the past because at least Levi was here, and they could have the present.

Levi helped Eren take off his shoes when Eren realized that perhaps he didn’t sober up completely just yet. When he tucked Eren to bed, Eren was gripped with the worst sense of panic. He felt a strong need for Levi to _know_.

“I got a boyfriend after you left.”

Levi smoothed his palms over the bedsheet. He didn’t meet Eren’s eyes. “I know. Mikasa told me.”

“We were together for two years. Two fucking years.” Eren laughed but he felt like crying. “He proposed.”

Levi’s fists clenched on the sheet. “Eren—”

“He brought up marriage several times before and all I said was that it’ll be nice. But then he proposed and I—” Eren buried his face in the crook of his left arm and frantically wiped at his nose with the back of his right palm. “It was our favorite restaurant, and everything was perfect, and all I could think was that I couldn’t break his heart so I have to say yes. But I couldn’t do it. Because I didn’t want to live a lie anymore.”

Eren felt a dip of the bed as Levi sat next to him and a comforting hand squeezing his shoulder. “I hate myself. I don’t deserve him. He loves me but I can’t give him what he wants. I can’t. I knew one month into our relationship that he’s not what I want but I didn’t want to break another heart because I’m an awful coward who doesn’t know what he wants. I didn’t want to break it the way I broke yours. I’m a pathetic unemployed undeserving bastard who should be fucking grateful that someone loves him. So I kept the facade going knowing that I don’t love him because maybe if I’m with someone I won’t think about how much I miss you.”

Levi rubbed his shoulder. “Did you love me….back then?”

Eren’s chest clenched painfully. “I never stopped.”

Levi’s breath hitched. He didn’t say a word.

Eren took deep breaths, hoping that his eyes would stop running and his nose would clear and maybe he could salvage the pieces of his life and put them back together again. Here he was, lost his job, ended things with his fiancé, no idea what he was going to do next, but all he could think about was that he wanted Levi to know the awful truths that he had been hiding for so long. He couldn’t say them to Mikasa. He couldn’t say them to Jean, even when Jean tearfully demanded an explanation for their breakup. He couldn’t say them to his parents when he went home for Christmas. He couldn’t even admit them to himself. But there they were now out in the open. Maybe for once, Eren could clean off the infection that rotted his heart and finally stitch his wound closed.

For the first time in a long time, Eren felt free.

“Eren,” Levi said. “Would you look at me?”

Eren shook his head and kept his face in his arm.

Levi sighed. “Please?”

Even through the blurriness of his tears, Levi still looked like everything Eren had ever wanted.

“When I confessed my feelings for you before I left, I knew it was a lot to ask for a long distance relationship. I was crushed, but after some time, I understood. But you didn’t owe one to me just because I want it, Eren. You didn’t want one, and neither of us knew what to do even though we loved each other. It’s okay to be honest about what you want and need.”

Levi reached for Eren’s hand and entwined their fingers together. “I can’t say much about your situation with Jean, but sometimes we make mistakes, and those mistakes can hurt people deeply. But all you can do is do your best to live honestly with yourself and with other people.”

“I should have been honest with Jean since the beginning.” Eren swallowed, feeling the churning guilt rising again. “I shouldn’t have dragged it on so long.”

“What’s done is done. You have the strength to move forward.”

Eren felt like a hot mess of a human being, but at least Levi was here anchoring Eren as best as he could.

“You got me.” Eren tightened his grip on Levi’s hand.

“I always do,” said Levi.

“Please stay here.”

“I can stay for tonight.”

Eren meant forever, but maybe that was a conversation they could have in the morning. Levi pulled away from Eren to take off his clothes until he was only in his boxers and turned off the lights before settling into the bed next to Eren. Eren listened to Levi’s breathing until it slowed into the cadence of sleep before he whispered, “I hope someday you will come to love me again.”

And the darkness whispered back in Levi’s voice, “I never stopped.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Eren woke up to splitting headache, two painkillers next to a glass of water by his bedside, the sight of Levi’s jacket folded neatly over his chair, and the smell of coffee and bacon drifting into the bedroom. He still regretted losing the love of his life two years ago. He was still unemployed and without a fiancé. He still felt the weight of his awful life decisions, and he didn’t know what he was going to do next.     

But he was going to take the painkillers, go to the kitchen to grab breakfast, tease Levi about stealing his food, and take life one step at a time.

Levi was here, and Eren felt a little less lonely and a little less afraid.

 

 

 

 

   

 


End file.
